Intelligent
Systems/Mixed Initiatives
Philip Emmerman
Information Science and Technology Directorate
The future battlespace will require an unprecedented level of automation
in which soldier-operated, autonomous, and semi-autonomous ground, air and sea
platforms along with dismounted soldiers will function as a tightly coupled
team. Physical agents, such as robotic sensor and weapons platforms, will be
ubiquitous in the future battlefield, significantly lowering the risks to our
warfighters thus allowing the army to achieve full-spectrum dominance within
the constraints of reduced manpower and casualties. These physical agents are to complement
future manned systems and therefore they must be able to collaborate not only
amongst themselves but also with their manned partners. Their roles will range
from scout missions performing reconnaissance, surveillance, and target
acquisition to urban rescue missions. Integrated, multi-agent combat systems
will facilitate increased mobility, survivability, sensor coverage, information flow and situation awareness. Much of the current military physical agent
interaction and behavior research is focussed on single soldier supervision of
either small sets of robots or very large sets of essentially autonomous
robots. Leader/follower and swarms
applications fall within these areas.
There is also ongoing concept development and research of small mixed
teams of soldiers and robots interaction, such as in the robotic mule concept
to support the Objective Force Warrior where it is envisioned that soldiers and
robots jointly are conducting missions within the same battlespace. Visualization and global behavior research
supporting highly collaborative mixed teams of soldiers and robots are necessary
to bring these concepts to fruition. These agents must perform
intelligently in a hostile, uncertain, and dynamically changing
environment. The collaborative, dynamic
behavior of the physical and software agents must supplement the activities of
their human partners. This mixed initiative approach must take advantage of the
enormous potential synergy of these, intelligent teams of soldiers, software,
and physical agents.
Brief Biography:
Dr. Philip Emmerman
is the Associate Director for Technology of the Information Science and
Technology Directorate of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. His current major thrusts are battlefield
visualization, software agents, and collaborative physical agents. Dr. Emmerman
received Harry Diamond Laboratory's Hinman Award in
1983 and the Federal Computer Week FOSE award in 1990. His open systems thrust within the Combat information
Processor program fathered the Hawkeye program and its Desert Storm
success. He was responsible for the
target acquisition and system integration for OSD's
Demo 1 program. His visualization program was instrumental in initiating the
Army's battlefield visualization thrust.